With the pandemic era ending, Medicaid annual renewals are unwinding in Missouri.
Eligibility for Medicaid is being verified and more than 54,000 residents have already lost coverage in June and July.
Timothy McBride, professor of public health at Washington University in St. Louis, said 24% are deemed to be ineligible while 23% are still pending review.
"Of those losing coverage, 74% in the first two months were procedural violations," McBride explained. "What that means is that the state dropped their coverage. Probably means they did not submit paperwork."
Professor McBride emphasized half of those who have lost Medicaid coverage in Missouri are children.
Children make up the majority of the Medicaid population, but they are also the most eligible group. McBride pointed out 31,000 children are still pending Medicaid eligibility review, and added it is concerning when they disproportionately make up too high of a percentage of those losing or pending coverage.
"You can see that a higher proportion of the children are in the pending category than even in the losing coverage category, which is actually pretty high as well," McBride emphasized. "So not only is it not great that half the people losing coverage already are kids but 60% are pending, so that number of people losing coverage is certainly going to go up."
Nationwide Medicaid enrollment rose to a record high during the pandemic, and in Missouri, the enrollment also rose to a record of more than 1.5 million people.
The Missouri Public News Service is a partner with KRCU Public Radio.
